USA TODAY Review

'Sex on the Moon'? Wait for the movie

Thad Roberts, an aspiring young scientist, will never realize his dream of being the first man on Mars, but by his account, he did have sex on the moon.

If Roberts is to be believed - not an idle question -- when he was 25, he and his 20- year-old girlfriend, both promising NASA interns, made love on a hotel mattress, under which he had placed a few ounces of lunar samples, which he had stolen from NASA and planned to sell for $100,000.

Hence the title of Ben Mezrich's breathless book, Sex on the Moon, which is made for the movies.

In fact, the same team at Sony that turned Mezrich's last book, The Accidental Billionaires, about the founding of Facebook, into the hit movie, The Social Network, has optioned this one.

It may turn out to be another blockbuster, based on a true story, enhanced for the screen.

But publishers, perhaps quaintly, draw an either/or line between fiction and non-fiction. Mezrich has a credibility gap that shines through writing that's overwrought, overstated, over-everything.

Roberts was caught in an FBI sting in 2002, served six years in prison, and upon his release, according to Mezrich, contacted the author to tell his bizarre story. (Mezrich says Roberts was not paid.)

A shy Mormon from Utah, Roberts had been disowned by his parents when he confessed to having premarital sex (no moon rocks were involved) with an aspiring model who would become his wife but failed to understand him. (Who can blame her?) At NASA, he set out to reinvent himself as a James Bond-figure.

Bond was a spy, not a scientist, but his name is repeatedly dropped:

Roberts was "this James Bond type of character who could do anything, who would do anything. Fantasy was his true talent."

An author's note warns that, "Since this is, at heart, the story of Thad's journey, much of it is from his point of view." (Yes, the guy with a talent for fantasy).

Mezrich notes that "details of settings and descriptions have been changed to protect identities; certain names, individuals' characterizations, physical descriptions, and histories have been altered to protect privacy, in some cases at the characters' own request. I do employ the technique of re-created dialogue," a decade or more after the actual conversations.

That makes for a smoother narrative, but raises doubts about how he knows this or that, and what facts and details he changed.

Mezrich calls Roberts' girlfriend Rebecca Moore. (Her real name, Tiffany Fowler, is easily found in news accounts and FBI statements online). Roberts' lawyer, portrayed as clueless, is just John. (I suspect the publisher's lawyers did more editing than its editors).

And editing he needs. Mezrich never met an adjective he didn't like.

Rebecca/Tiffany has breasts that are not only "perfect," but "perky."

To Roberts, she "looked even younger than she was, some sort of gorgeous, sable-haired sprite infusing life into everything she got near." At least until she got near the FBI, alerted by a Belgium rock collector who Roberts had contacted on the Internet. She and another intern/accomplice got off with probation. It's not clear if either talked to Mezrich.

Also unclear is how such bright students (if NASA is to believed) could be so dumb.

Mezrich blames it on love. In one of his re-created dialogues, Roberts says, "Rebecca, I want to give you the moon. I mean a piece of the moon."